At least one in 25 older adults, about 2.2 million people in the United States, take multiple drugs in combinations that can produce a harmful drug-drug interaction, and half of these interactions involve a non-prescription medication, researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center report in the Dec. 24/31, 2008, issue of JAMA.

The risks of increasing people’s access to over-the-counter medicines may outweigh the benefits, warn experts in this week’s BMJ.

Drug costs have been increasing during 2007, especially those mainly prescribed to elderly.

Patients could be saved millions of trips to their GP under a new scheme that has the potential to revolutionise the system of prescribing medicines.

Allowing the drug industry to supply information on prescription medicines direct to patients in Europe will have serious implications for public health, warn experts in this week's BMJ.

A multi-disciplinary group of researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) has won a competitive, $2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to revolutionize the way researchers develop and test pharmaceutical drugs.

The labels on most prescription drug containers highlight the pharmacy’s name or logo rather than instructions on how to take the medication, reports a new study in the September 10 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.